Faculty Members at State Universities in Pennsylvania End 3-Day Strike

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/22/us/pennsylvania-universities-faculty-strike.html

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Thousands of unionized faculty members at state-run universities in Pennsylvania ended a three-day strike on Friday after a tentative agreement was reached with the state, officials said.

The pact requires the approval of a legislative assembly of the union, the Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculties, before its 5,500 members can vote on it, Kenneth M. Mash, the president of the union, said in an interview on Friday. He expected the ratification process to take about six weeks.

The strike at 14 universities run by Pennsylvania’s State System of Higher Education was a first for the union. Picket lines formed at all of the universities’ campuses and at the system’s headquarters in Harrisburg, Pa., after the strike began on Wednesday.

The tentative agreement includes raises and measures to save on health care costs, Kenn Marshall, a spokesman for the system, said in an interview on Friday.

“The most important thing is the strike is over, and bright and early Monday morning students will be back in the classroom,” he said.

Under the agreement, Mr. Mash said, the union would not get raises as high as those of other unions representing state workers that recently settled contracts. Details on the raises and other measures were not publicly available because they had not yet been provided to union members.

The main issue was the “quality of higher education,” including fighting efforts to increase the number of adjunct professors and to allow graduate students who had earned 18 credits to teach courses, Mr. Mash said.

The state had proposed 249 changes. “We fought back virtually every one of them,” Mr. Mash said. “And the amount of love and respect throughout this from our students, you can’t pay for that with money.”

The previous contract expired on June 30, 2015. The new one will be retroactive and expire on June 30, 2018.